Silly French Authorities

At the start of 2017 we’re still looking back at 2016.
Today’s cartoon is based on a story reported in many places including Israel National News. DryBonesBlog

Paris rejected Israeli software which could have stopped attack

A groundbreaking Israeli security system could have helped French authorities prevent the Paris massacre last November – but authorities balked at the deal under pressure from the anti-Israel boycott movement.

Speaking to Fox News, an Israeli counter-terrorism source with intimate knowledge of both the software involved and the deal itself said that after the Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher attack the previous January an Israeli company offered to provide French authorities with special terrorist-tracking software, which could well have enabled them to flag the ISIS terrorist network operating under their noses.

But although the French were initially very keen on the idea, they ultimately rejected it, the source said.

“French authorities liked it, but the official came back and said there was a higher-level instruction not to buy Israeli technology,” he told Fox News. “The discussion just stopped.”

The technology enables intelligence agencies to “connect the dots”, by aggregating and analyzing fragmented intelligence from multiple sources to provide a clear, comprehensive assessment. It has already been shared with the US and other Israeli allies, and helps to pinpoint terror suspects and other persons of interest to investigators.

The source claimed it could well have helped stop the Paris attacks, and potentially the more recent Brussels attacks as well, which were carried out by the same ISIS terror network. INN